100 years and counting

BY JOANNE CORCORAN

What is it the state gives you when you reach 100 years of age nowadays? €100? €1,000?

Well, Sinn Féin members are a little more generous than that. November 2005 marks the 100th anniversary of Sinn Féin and its members are planning a year-long birthday party to celebrate.

Caitríona Ruane, MLA for South Down and well known for her work with the Colombia Three and for being a director of Féile an Phobail, has been appointed chair of the SF100 committee and is the person charged with running the show for next year.

"It's a momentous occasion for Sinn Féin and Ireland," Ruane told An Phoblacht, when we met her last Tuesday. "We're marking 100 years of struggle under the banner of Sinn Féin and we want the whole country to celebrate with us."

While the actual anniversary falls in November 2005, the party plans to kick of the festivities and commemorations this December, with a calendar marking the major republican events of the last century. And the celebrations will run until February of 2006, leading right into the 25th anniversary of the Hunger Strikes.

The organisation needed for such a lenghty schedule is mind-boggling.

"We're using the Féile model at the moment," Ruane said. "At the Féile you'd have an official committee that organised the big events and then you'd have local events going on as well. The official SF100 committee is going to be organising maybe ten or 12 big national events, and then we're really encouraging groups throughout Ireland, from Sinn Féin cumainn to communities, universities, schools and trade unions, to organise a whole series of events on their own."

Among the biggest events planned by SF100 will be a massive birthday celebration in November and mass rallies in each of the four provinces.

But it has hundreds of other ideas that it's currently examining as possibilities.

"We're going to have some themes running throughout the whole 14 months, like reminding people of the contribution of women republicans in the last 100 years, and looking at contributions they'll be making in the years ahead," Ruane said. "We would also like to recognise the growing ethnic diversity of our nation and celebrate the contribution these new communities have made and will make in the future."

The committee is also thinking about organising a dinner, an auction, a film or theatre festival, debates throughout Ireland, commissioning a piece of music or a song, an official stamp, concerts, a sporting event — you get the picture. In addition, it will be producing booklets, commemorative coins, DVDs and videos, and it will have its own website to mark the occasion.

Significantly, 2005 will also see the relaunch of An Phoblacht, which will be celebrating the fact that it is the longest running political paper in Ireland.

But Caitríona is adamant that people will have to stand on their own two feet when organising local events.

"We will give advice, but myself and Deirdre MacManus will be running the main events, which are going to need most of our attention. So Sinn Féin Cúigí will be asked to appoint representatives and they will work with us as well as the cumainn in the planning of events."

MacManus, the new committee's organiser, was the first Director of Féile an Phobail. Her e-mail address is [email protected] and this is where ideas for events can be sent.

"This year will be about building Sinn Féin while looking back at where we came from," Ruane said "We've come so far, and we have so much potential for the future. We'll be celebrating that for the next 14 months."

A century of struggle

The founding date of Sinn Féin is generally accepted as 28 November 1905. On that date, the first annual convention of the National Council was held in the Rotunda, Dublin. Edward Martyn was President of the Council and Arthur Griffith (author of The Resurrection of Hungary, 1904) outlined the Sinn Féin Programme, subsequently published as The Sinn Féin Policy.

Pre-1916 Sinn Féin was Griffithite and dual-monarchist, but as an umbrella group it included republicans. Griffith wanted to frame a policy that would be more principled than Home Rule parliamentarianism. It urged the withdrawal of Irish MPs from Westminster, stressed economic self-reliance and protectionism and the development of Irish industry and education, but fell short of the full demand for Irish independence. 1916 changed all that and Sinn Féin became a republican organisation.

From 1917, the establishment of the Republic was Sinn Féin's aim and in 1918 this was endorsed by the vast majority of the electorate of Ireland, and Dáil Éireann was established.

The British Government's response was war and a political plot to partition Ireland. Under the leadership of Sinn Féin the Irish people were united during the Black and Tan War and Ireland's demand for independence was recognised throughout the world. But that leadership was divided when a section of it supported the Treaty of 1921. Partition, Civil War and destruction followed.

The supporters of the Free State left Sinn Féin in 1922 to form Cumann na nGael. In 1926, de Valera left to form Fianna Fáil. Sinn Féin stood firm for the Republic from then until the 1950s.

In the 1950s the republican party was back in public consciousness when it elected TDs and MPs on both sides of the Border. Sinn Féin was involved in forming the Civil Rights Movement in the late 1960s and another split came in 1969. But the party continued, standing alongside the nationalist people of the Six Counties who were under vicious repression from British forces.

A strong party developed in the Six Counties from 1981 onwards and the Sinn Féin vote climbed higher. The ten republican Hunger Strikers who died in that year instigated a new era. But much more struggle and sacrifice was to come.

As part of the development of the party, the policy of abstention from Leinster House was ended in 1986. In 1992, the document Towards a Lasting Peace in Ireland was published and the Peace Process commenced.

Sinn Féin is central to that process, advancing the demand for Irish re-unification and national democracy.

It is the only All-Ireland party and has five TDs in Leinster House, four abstentionist Westminster MPs, 24 Members of the Assembly in the Six Counties, two MEPs, and 232 seats on local councils throughout Ireland.

With a century of struggle behind it, Sinn Féin is today the fastest growing political movement in Ireland, with the youngest and most active membership and with support among the Irish diaspora unmatched by any other political party.